“You’re just like them.”

“Wait, please.”

He swung around and marched toward me until I had little choice but to take a step back. When we were nose to nose, he answered, his voice low, his face flushed. “Lies. Runarounds. It’s all I’ve gotten my whole life, and I’m done. I’ll find out the truth myself, one way or another.”

The anger in his expression, the pain emanating out of him, the glittering wetness between his lashes, cut sharply into my chest. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know what to do. I’d promised Reyes to stay out of what he considered his business and his business alone. But Shawn had come to me. Surely Reyes would understand.

And, quite frankly, Reyes could bite me. He was my business.

Shawn turned again, but I took hold of his arm. He stopped but didn’t look at me, and I could tell he was embarrassed by his behavior.

“There is a reason I was looking into your case. I have no evidence whatsoever, but I believe you were abducted by the Fosters.”

He must’ve believed the same thing. He registered no surprise at all. “Why do you think that?”

“Because —” I stopped. Took a deep breath. Wondered if I was taking my life into my own hands. I could only be killed by another god. And Reyes was another god.

Oh yeah. He was going to kill me.

“Because,” I continued, opening the bag to let the cat out of it, “because my husband was abducted by them as well.”

After two hours and seven cups of coffee split between the three of us – since Cookie had helped me with the initial investigation, I’d invited her into the meeting – we came to the conclusion that Shawn was definitely one of the three adoptions that the shady agency had overseen.

I couldn’t imagine how the agency got away with it. There were rules and regulations up the wazoo for a business like that. State inspections and licenses that had to be approved. The paperwork must have just slipped through somehow. Or perhaps someone was paid to look the other way.

We went over everything Shawn knew and everything we’d found out with a fine-tooth rake. Shawn wanted to know more about Reyes. I had already said too much. And besides, I got the feeling he knew a lot more about Reyes than he was letting on.

Thankfully, he understood when I told him I needed to confer with my partner in crime before filling him in. Of course, one search and he could know way too much about Reyes, if he didn’t already – namely, that he’d spent a decade behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. But what little I did say about Reyes hadn’t surprised him in the least. Almost as though he already knew him.

The longer we talked, the stronger the feeling that there was more to Shawn Foster than met the eye. I would catch him studying me. Not in the usual way a man might study a woman, but in a curious way. Like he was trying to figure me out. But that was cool. I was trying to figure him out, too.

“Okay, we’ll get started on this. Are you sure you want to go home, Shawn?”

He’d stood and taken his cup to the counter where the Bunn sat. “What do you mean?”

I walked over to him as Cookie gathered papers. “I mean, are you going to be able to keep up the charade a little longer? I don’t think you should tell your parents —”

“You mean the crackpots who abducted me?”

I bowed my head. The resentment was already getting a foothold. “Yes. I don’t think you should tell them just yet. Let us look into this a little more. See what we can dig up.”

He nodded. “I won’t say anything.”

“I’m worried what will happen if you do.”

“Charley, I’ve been living with this for a long time. The doubt. The suspicion. A few more days isn’t going to make any difference.”

“I live in the Causeway, the apartments behind us. Third floor. First door on your left. You are welcome anytime, day or night.”

“Thanks,” he said. It was a brush-off. He didn’t believe me.

“No, I mean it. In fact, I think you should come stay with us either way. Just until we get this sorted out.”

He let a grin overtake his features. “And what would my brother say?”

I laughed softly. His brother. Reyes.

“Maybe you should tell him about all this first.”

“He’s kind of awesome, actually. He’d be totally cool with it.”

“Okay, well, I’ll think about it.” He said good-bye to Cookie, and just as he was about to walk out the door, he turned and said, “There is one more thing I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Shoot.”

He narrowed his eyes, looked me up and down, then said, “Why the hell are you so bright?”

4

Why yes, I have discovered the joy of cooking. It’s when my husband does it.

— MEME

“What does this mean?” Cookie asked.

I’d put Shawn off for a while. No way was I going to tell him about my whole grim reaper gig. Or better yet, the god thing.

“He must be like Pari,” I said.

One of my besties, a tattoo artist with more ink pigmentation than skin cells, could see just beyond the veil that separated this plane from the next. The one that lies between the tangible world and the intangible. But instead of seeing the departed, instead of seeing an actual being, she saw mist. But she also saw my light. In fact, she had to wear sunglasses around me.

Shawn seemed fine without the shades, but he definitely saw my inner glowworm. I decided to leave it at that. If I pried further into what he could see, he would’ve had cause to pry further into what I was, so I didn’t ask if he could see the departed. If he could see ghosts. I just told him I had a connection to the supernatural realm that was… complicated.